CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

First...

Here is the initial post that spawned this new topic:
http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,6275.msg27651.html#msg27651

Dave Greenberg's response led to this Confluence child in "Requirements - ACTIVE Discussion and Revision:"
http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRM/Canvassing

Second...

I have no idea what this will cost, what type of skill it requires, or a time line.  I do have a network of prospective sponsors with no coding experience who also don't realize they need this and are (Windows9)8 to 10 years behind the curve on CRM technology but they might be persuaded to see that they really do need this thing.

I don't know if that last sentence made any sense.  My point is that I have some connections and a chance to sell this idea if I can get a team together first.  The team will have to help me give some cost and time estimates before I can pitch it.

So...are there any willing and able people interested in working on a team to develop CiviCanvass?

Well...Looks like I have to set some appointments and test the waters.

Following up on my most recent post.

So far there are indications that two organizations are discussing supporting this project.  When possible, can we hear back about the success or failure of these meetings?

In addition, I propose that any of us who have an interest in seeing this project completed take the initiative and do our own funding work in addition to any institutional money we may be able to generate.

To break it down:

If we can convince 300 people to donate $100, our job is done and we can move on to the fun part of building the component.  Or we can find 600 people who will give $50... or 2000 people @ $20... or some combination of the above.  Basically, we need some donors in some combination of the above dollar amounts.

I know that I can hit up a few friends who will give me my $20 now rather than lose it to me in the next season of fantasy football.  So I will commit to an initial $100 of my own money as well as finding another $100 from friends, family, and strangers.  So now we only need to get these 299 more chunks of $100.

Of course this is contingent on setting up something akin to my previous post.  A system to accept the donations and keep them safe until we have big enough chunk to get rolling.  My preference is using a 501c3 and a savings/money market account opened solely for the purpose of holding the cash for this project.

I may be interested in funding part of this project. What does it look like in terms of moving forward?

Hello all,
I'm writing because a group we work with, the Maine People's Resource Center is looking for groups to collaborate with us on the development of the CiviCanvass component. We will be talking with a Civi developer Tuesday (10/13) about his bid for development.
We are really excited about this component and would love responses as soon as possible.

Here is an extensive list of all the reporting features and capabilities they need.
Please contact me at: helen@progressivetech.org or post if you have any questions.

General Reporting/Exporting/Importing
•   Flexible and advanced reporting - an interface is available for advanced users to create reports based on arbitrary search fields and output fields.
•   Flexible reporting, beginner - an interface is available for regular users to choose from a reasonable set of pre-defined search and output fields presented in a way that makes sense to users.
•   Standard outputs – labels, letters, phone sheets, walk sheets, lists of emails (or connect to external email sending program)
•   Be able to search for and calculate number of all activities (events, membership payments, meetings) by individual, specific types of activities by individual (attended an action, spoke with legislator, attended public meeting, etc.)  so that an engagement level or membership level can be assigned
•   Need to pull lists on house/senate/ congressional district, as well as redistricted, so the info old will be able to match with new house/senate district with addresses and towns

•   Financial:
o   Ability to export financial info (membership, donations, funding, etc.) to CSV/excel format and/or Quickbooks
o   Report or export financial donations of members for canvass/phone banking info  – need to know amount of gift, check or credit or cash, via phone canvasser, field canvasser, or staff person, response to mailing;  need to pull list of different types of donors (lapsed, pledge donors ,etc.)
o   Aggregate donor information: first gift, last gift, largest gift, total # of gifts, average gift, aggregate total of gifts
o   Want to look at giving history, who gives most – as an indicator to take action
o   Commission reports:  during phone canvass, keep donation info – keeps track of the commission the canvasser gets (formula) – staff manually enters percentage based on donation amount/giving history, and db calculates the commission by canvasser (see the MPRC screen shot example) (Field canvass – have quota to raise, bonus is amount above quota)
o   Number of donations / regular donors in past year
o   Information on credit card, checks, and pledges
o   Report of Members whose credit declined or not process

•   For Phone Canvass and Phone list / sheets:
o   need to call members based on giving history (e.g. who has given in past year, or who hasn’t given in past 27 months)
o   search for different  types of donors, folks get report of member records  (name, contact info, member number, type and amounts of last 3 gifts, email address, note field, preview of what commission would be (e.g. 20%) –
o   Want to know what were the last 3 campaigns were that we called them for

•   For Field Canvass and Walk List / sheet:
o   search by street/location, with some aspects of giving history – need to know who NOT to ask for $$, or hasn’t given in years- need to know amount and type of gift
o   Need know who’s a frequent voter, other  voter demographics,  will be capturing info at the door (issues / interests,  not at home, who said no, will commit to an action, etc.) ; may capture money donation

•   Major Donor lists – calls all the time:  search higher end donors, then need to call , they stay in rotation unless give big $

•   Major Donor reports once a month: Every single donation; from phone, field, staff, one time gift, credit card credit, check, Notes field, email, contact info

o   Search for potential major donors – based on subjective criteria

•   Export info for Thank you letters (name, contact info, payment amount, date, etc.)
•   Grants/Funders: would like to track – amount, when arrived, from who, what for, when report is due
•   Want to be able to pull targeted lists for emails, mailings, canvassing, for solicitations, newsletters, etc.

That seems a really oblique comment and would normally prompt me to remove the account, though usually such posts have a url in them. What is your point?